


The Dark Door of the Secret Earth

by madamsledge



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 13:33:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20601623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamsledge/pseuds/madamsledge
Summary: This follows after Bloody Gulch. Wrapped in a hazy nightmare, Ron comes to the rescue.





	The Dark Door of the Secret Earth

The wind carried the quiet echo of summer well into the fall. Even late at night, the warmth and humidity pervaded. Within it hung a tension that coiled around you like a snake, and, like now, often you found yourself waking up from a nightmare about a snake wider than your arm crushing your chest. Without even feeling as if you had slept a wink, now you sat up, gasping loudly, gulping in heavy breaths of ozone and static.

It wasn’t about snakes, of course, and there was nothing in the air. The enemy was far more frightening in actuality.

“Trooper.”

You had not heard the footsteps and almost picked your rifle from the dusty earth before someone put his foot down on the barrel, preventing it.

Come to think of it, his was a voice you should have easily been able to remember. On a different night, you had heard that voice and had your heart beat just as quickly, your lungs work just as hard, but under entirely different circumstances. What exactly would have happened after that night, you did not know–he’d gotten wounded, non-fatally, the following day, sent to the hospital, and now was the first time you’d seen or heard of him since.

Speirs lifted his foot after a moment and crouched down across from you, dark eyes under the edge of helmet. You didn’t know the man, not by any stretch, but probably some words of greeting should have came to mind. Instead, you could recall only how the colour of his lips deepened when they were swollen from kissing you. That was the only sort of thing you knew of him at all, other than rumours and whispers of fear that followed him like a billowing cape. Had he placed that mantle upon himself?

“You drew attention to yourself,” he said finally.

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant Speirs,” you whispered loudly. Even still, your chest burned. Attempting to look anywhere but the pitch sparks of his eyes proved to be a task beyond the bounds of possibility. You were forced to pat around the dirt around you to find your canteen, to shakily open it and take a drink still without ever breaking eye contact. “I won’t make another sound.”

More silence, a suffocating atmosphere unbroken by the presumptive intrusion of words.

“You said ‘help’.” Speirs leaned forward to briefly let his eyes flit downward, searching for signs of injury. Nothing in his expression lent to any notion of perturbance in having found none.

“I did?” You tried to swallow the embarrassment clawing through your throat.

“It was just a dream, trooper,” he said, because of course he was the sort of man who surveyed all and sorted it just as quickly. There were always things he seemed to have a preternatural gift for knowing, or at least learning very quickly. He licked his lips and then leaned closer still; in that fragmented burst of time, the man before you was rebuilt. His voice gained a quality both distant and warm. “You said ‘help’, Y/N.”

Curious, how no one else had come running. “Are you sure I did?”

One nod. One little dip of his head, certain, confident.

You hit your lip with the canteen when you took another drink because you still could not look away. “I’m sorry. There was this snake, crushing my lungs.”

A glint of metal showed you how quickly he could move. Speirs peered around the dark, looking for the offending reptile, knife in his clenched fist, but you carefully placed your hand on his opposite elbow.

“The dream,” you softly clarified. “In my dream, there was a snake. There wasn’t one actually here.”

Just as before, one nod. One nod, and then the knife was put away–Speirs was pulling you to lean against his chest, sat between his knees. You could feel the same fingers that had just clutched a mean knife ease their way through your hair and the gentle touch of his head resting on top of yours. Was it still, in fact, a dream? Had he even yet returned from the hospital to roam amongst the foxholes at night, as he once had?

You almost expected him to answer those questions himself, but of course he didn’t. He wasn’t some eldritch horror or a thing that could read minds, only a man, imperfect, but trying.

Additional rigidity and tightness in your chest, previously unnoticed, eased away. His fingertips on your scalp brought quiet to your mind and body, precious, precious quiet.

“Where did you get wounded?” you asked, peace spreading all the way down to your toes.

He shifted. “The hospital was worse. It isn’t worth thinking about. Oh, but don’t think about snakes, either.”

You smiled to yourself. Trying was the keyword. The willingness of another person to simply try for someone else was a sacred and valuable thing, you realised. Trying yourself, you rubbed his knee and hoped that wasn’t the location of the bullet wound. “I worried. I missed you.”

A critical element of 'trying’ was that it was tailored to the person receiving one’s efforts. Trying for Ronald Speirs was an artform of saying as much as possible in the absolute minimum possible allotment of words. Any more than those five words to carry those sentiments would have closed him like a fist. Instead, he went on stroking your hair in the quiet dark.

By increments, almost imperceptible at first, he gained a little confidence in his movements and their motives. It meant something, to be told that one was missed, even in so few words–especially in so few words. Words were nothing but a means of conveyance for concepts, truths, wisdoms, the way a person felt. You had been concerned, you’d noticed his absence, felt it, and now he knew that for himself, and that was enough.

“I’ll stay until you feel safe enough to fall asleep,“ he murmured against your hair.

Without a doubt, he wouldn’t be moving until long after.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm also on tumblr as warmommy and post my work much more on there!


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